


Real People

by aceofsparrows



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, Songfic, TW: Child loss, TW: suicidal thoughts, tw: depression, tw: mentions of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23927134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofsparrows/pseuds/aceofsparrows
Summary: He tells her he loves her every night because he knows firsthand how delicate life is, and he wants her to know how strong she is for living it.* * *Anne and Gilbert mourn the loss of their firstborn daughter.a songfic feat. "Like Real People Do" by Hozier
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62





	Real People

**Author's Note:**

> i haven’t read house of dreams in a long while, so this is basically au.
> 
> * * *
> 
> tw: implied suicidal thoughts, child loss, depression, post-partum depression, mentions of death

**_I had a thought, dear_ **

**_However scary_ **

**_About that night_ **

_**The bugs and the dirt** _

“Anne? Anne!” It’s pitch black outside, and she’s crouched in the yard, barely more than a shadow. At the base of the tree, her back turned to him, she is impossibly small, only visible because of the stark whiteness of her nightgown reflecting what little moonlight there is through the dense clouds.

He bites his lip so hard he can taste blood, and strides across the yard.

“Anne, darling, you need to stop.”

**_Why were you digging?_ **

**_What did you bury_ **

_**Before those hands pulled me** _

_**From the earth?** _

“Where is she?” Anne whispers, over and over and over again. “Where is she, Gilbert, where is my daughter? Where is she? _Where is she_?”

Her hands are covered in dirt, and her nails scraped raw. Gilbert kneels beside her, a hand on her shoulder. “Anne. _Anne_. Look at me, love, please.”

“Where is she, Gilbert? Why did He take her from us?” She’s devolved into sobs now, and she slumps into his side, heaving and gasping.

“I don’t know, Anne-girl. I don’t know.”

_**I will not ask you where you came from** _

_**I will not ask you, neither should you** _

_**Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips** _

_**We should just kiss like real people do** _

“How good to see you two!” The woman smiles, and Gilbert smiles politely back. “That little house of yours is just darling; Ted and I drove the buggy by last week and I told him I thought we should get a little apple blossom tree just like yours in the front garden. The flowers are so darling in the spring, and it just brightened up the whole yard, doesn’t it, Anne?”

Anne manages a small smile, but her eyes are dim and preoccupied. “It’s my constant solace to have something so beautiful so near,” she says quietly, and the woman nods like she understands.

“Now, Dr. Blythe, I heard they’ve made great strides with the….”

The tree outside the window is blooming, and Anne wishes she were home.

_**I knew that look dear** _

_**Eyes always seeking** _

_**Was there in someone** _

_**That dug long ago** _

“Anne?” He finds her in the parlor, embroidery hoop on her knee, gaze caught on her reflection in the cabinet glass across the room. Jem is playing happily on the floor with his little wooden blocks, and Gilbert smiles and stoops to pick up his son as he enters the room.

“Anne, it’s almost half-past three. Diana will be here from Avonlea soon for tea.”

There’s no answer. Outside the window, the apple blossom’s last blooms are falling and wilting in preparation for summer, and Anne’s gaze is still fixed on her reflection.

“Anne?”

She gasps as if she’s come up for air from underwater, and her gaze focuses as she glances at Gilbert. “Thank you, Gilbert. He’ll need his bath tonight, since it’s Saturday. I’ll just finish here with Katie Maurice and then I’ll start the water boiling for tea.”

Gilbert smiles sadly. “Yes, of course. Say hello to Katie for me, will you?”

“Of course.” She smiles at him, and he turns to go, face falling when his back is turned.

Two years and counting, and he’s still trying to find the woman he married amidst the endless murk of grief.

**_So I will not ask you_ **

_**Why you were creeping** _

_**In some sad way I already know** _

He’s working late. He almost never does, at least not at home, but the accounts for the month need to be settled and balanced and he’s been caught up in seeing to Jem all week and has to finish them tonight. The lamps are low, and he’s so absorbed in his work that he doesn’t even notice she’s there until she speaks.

“Come to bed, Gil.”

He sighs, twisting to look at her where she stands in the doorway. Hair like a sunset cascading down her shoulder, her nightgown still grass-stained from that night almost three years ago, she looks like some fairy come to sweep him away.

He sets down his pen.

“Couldn’t sleep, love? It’s very late.”

“I don’t like the dark, Gil. I used to find it magical and endlessly romantic, but now it’s just empty and sad.”

He stands, crossing to her and taking her slender hands in his. Her nails are bitten raw, knuckles stained with ink. She’s been writing again.

“I’ll come to bed,” he acquiesces, and she looks up at him with a hint of a smile at her lips.

“Thank you.”

**_I will not ask you where you came from_ **

_**I will not ask you and neither would you** _

_**Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips** _

_**We should just kiss like real people do** _

He finds the book later, shoved at the bottom of a stack of catalogues and dime-novels and unopened coupon envelopes. A rough cloth cover, worn with age but not use, its pattern still distinct, even though the colors have faded. The pages inside are full, however, with Anne’s familiar scrawl. Pages and pages and pages of stories, all of them deep and dark and beautiful and terrible. It’s writing like he’s never seen her write, raw and simple but still so powerful.

She never uses names, but it’s clear who and what she’s writing about.

He puts the book back, declutters the side table for when the neighbors come over for dinner that evening, and tries not to think about the stories.

Someday, he hopes, he’ll stop dreaming about that night at the apple blossom tree.

_**I could not ask you where you came from** _

_**I could not ask you, neither could you** _

_**Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips** _

_**We could just kiss like real people do** _

“I love you,” he tells her every night after that, whether she hears it or not. “I love you, Anne, more than anything in the world.”

Eventually they leave behind the apple blossom tree; the little House of Dreams becomes too small for their growing family. But he keeps telling her he loves her, even after many children have been born strong and grow stronger, even after he tells him she’s the happiest she’s ever been.

Because there are still mornings she doesn’t want to get out of bed, and evenings when she writes in her journal until her fingers are stained with ink and she can’t see the page in front of her face in the failing light.

He tells her he loves her every night because he knows firsthand how delicate life is, and he wants her to know how strong she is for living it.

A sweet kiss on the forehead, and he tries not to remember that night at the apple blossom tree.

“I love you.”


End file.
